This is an excerpt from my book Hi-Impact Reading Strategies

Ping Pong Reading (AKA Volleyball Reading)

This is a reading and oral interpreting exercise that you can do every so often as a review.

I would not do this every day, maybe not even every week, because so much L1 is used (50%). But it can be a fun activity and students enjoy it, partially as a review, and partially as a brain break. It gets students up and moving with a purposeful activity so it also helps with classroom management. It also help slower students to catch up because the reading becomes comprehensible with the back-and-forth interpretation.

Ping Pong Reading is a paired exercise, best done with students standing and facing one another. Each student has a partner. All students have a copy of the text (L2) in their hands, usually a recent story, article or other reading, one where most students know almost every word.

─ Student A reads sentence #1 aloud in L2.

─ Student B says sentence #1 aloud interpreting into L1.

─ Student B immediately reads sentence #2 aloud in L2.

─ Student A then says sentence #2 aloud interpreting into L1.

─ Student A immediately reads sentence #3 aloud in L2 ….

It is like ping pong because after the “serve” (the first sentence read aloud in L2 by student A), the “ball” (the speaking aloud) hits the other side of the table two times: once when it bounces (translating to L1), and once when it is shot back (reading the next sentence aloud in L2). Both students are saying both languages aloud.

Ping Pong reading can also be done rotating around a circle at timed intervals.

Have students form two circles of 8 to 10: an inner circle, facing out, and an outer circle, facing in. Each student is across from another. Each student has a copy of the reading and they begin Ping Pong Reading. At the signal, the students in the outer circle take one step to the right. The new pairing in the rotation takes up where the slowest member of the group left off. The faster student in the pair will always help the slower student when they are one-on-one.

In larger classes, you will need two or even three such groupings.

Odd number of students, ergo one group of three? Tell them to figure it out. They will come up with something.

Works for me!  What is your experience with something like this?